


it's as good a place to fall as any

by apatternedfever



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dysfunctional Relationship, F/M, Post-Reichenbach, Shared Universe, Trust Issues, although technically it could be canon, but I doubt Sherlock will give us Adler and Moran: criminal overlords, mentions of criminal activity, they won't say they're in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatternedfever/pseuds/apatternedfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trusting a man like Sebastian Moran is a very stupid thing to do unless you have very good reason to believe you have his loyalty, and Irene has never been stupid. So she doesn't trust Sebastian Moran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's as good a place to fall as any

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [hurt/comfort bingo](http://hc-bingo.dreamwidth.org/), for the prompt "trust issues". As the tags say, this is borderline-AU, in that canon doesn't directly contradict it (yet), but I sincerely doubt canon will go this route.

It takes more than time to gain Irene's trust, more than sex, more even than partnership. Irene has never stopped looking over her shoulder, never stopped waiting for Sebastian Moran to sell her out. Never stopped making back-up plans for the day it happens. Never let herself get comfortable in the life she's landed in.  
  
Trusting a man like Sebastian Moran is a very stupid thing to do unless you have very good reason to believe you have his loyalty, and Irene has never been stupid. So she doesn't trust Sebastian Moran. Not when he accompanies James Moriarty the first time she meets the criminal mastermind in person, the silent bodyguard in the back of the room, attractive but barely a concern next to the meeting. Not when he becomes her liason, when meeting in person is too difficult for them both and calling isn't secure enough for the information they need to pass along. Not when he starts sharing her bed. Not when he runs into her again after her second death, even after realizing he must not have mentioned it to his employer.  
  
Not even after he turns up on her doorstep after Moriarty's death (supposed death, she had thought at the time, but Sebastian makes her realize otherwise quick enough), a different man. A man without a job, without direction, now that his orders were gone.  
  
She didn't trust him. But she enjoyed him, enjoyed their games and the challenge he presented, in such a different way than the fascinating Holmes brother and the overwhelming (terrifying, though she'd never say it) Mister Moriarty. She enjoyed his silence and his presence and yes, she enjoyed how skillful he was in her bed. She had, at least, enjoyed him enough to miss him, when they parted company for what she had though was, finally, the last time.  
  
And seeing him at her door, directionless and looking so much older though half a year had passed, she pitied him. She would never say that, never shame him that way, though she's sure he knows. But it's what made the final decision for her, why she stepped back to let him in instead of grabbing a weapon and making sure he wasn't here to finish a last job. She wouldn't put it past Moriarty to ask for her death once he no longer had use of her, even if she had gotten him the information he'd wanted, and it was only her own plans she'd failed in.  
  
But she let him in, and he didn't kill her. He didn't even touch her, that first night, barely for that first week. He slept on her couch and barely spoke to her, except a brief, rough, "Thank you, Miss Adler," when she offered him some new comfort.  
  
He was breaking and she was bored, and if it hadn't been for that maybe this whole thing would never have begun. But he needed someone else to give the orders, to show him where to point his gun, to give him a job to do and tell him his place in the world. And Irene.... She had been out of jeopardy long enough to feel safe, and a simple life only held its charm until she started living it.  
  
So this is what it comes to: a partnership with a man she's always always waiting to be betrayed by, though she knows that dozens of opportunities to betray each other have passed both of them by. A man whose hands are as used to -- maybe more used to -- rifles and knives as they are caresses, sharing her bed, when they're not both too busy to be in the same place. A hole in the world that needed filling, before the criminal underworld collapsed around it. Two restless people in need of something to do, something dangerous, something with blood and secrets and power and games, something  _fun_.  
  
So they found the hole that James Moriarty's death left in the world, and they started, slowly, to slide their way into it. Killed off the competition, killed off their enemies. Started making a name for themselves.  
  
And still, Irene doesn't trust Sebastian Moran.  
  
Not when they sit close on the couch like lovers and talk of deaths like dictators. Not when she walks into a chancy meeting with nothing but his rifle and his eyes across the street to guarentee her survival. Not when they fuck, on the rare quiet nights when they aren't too bloodied and bruised for it (and some of the ones when they really should be, and some of the nights that really aren't quiet at all). Not when he fixes her coffee and leaves it at her elbow while she works out details over the phone, not when she kisses him goodbye for luck, not when she sleeps with her back to him and never once wakes up, not when she stays up at night worrying if he's late to check in. Not when he chides her over some little thing she'd never have thought about in how she handles her weapons, "because, Miss Adler" -- always Miss Adler, like they hadn't known each other for years, hadn't been sleeping together for most of them -- " _they_ probably won't be thinking about it, so you ought to be, to have that much up on them". Not when he cleans her wounds with a steady and surprisingly tender hand, not when he destroys a delicate plan because it doesn't look like she's going to get out of it alive. Not when he lets her see him drunk, drugged, weakened, wounded, sleeping, _vulnerable_.  
  
He doesn't trust her -- she doesn't think he trusts anyone, doesn't think he knows how to. And she doesn't trust him. It doesn't say anything about their partnership, though it probably speaks volumes about them as people; it's just how they are, how things work in the world they inhabit.  
  
She'd be a fool to trust him, and Irene Adler is not a fool. Just more comfortable with danger than most.


End file.
